Epic Concept

I have to laugh, because while I do love both records - I agree and I know exactly what you mean by "weird" regarding Lamb.

What I love about Lamb is it truly is the quintessential Peter Gabriel fever dream lyrical expose. It's full bore unrestricted Peter Gabriel in every sense possible. It's like Supper's Ready on steroids, which doesn't automatically make it as good or better by any means.

What really grabs me on Tales, though, is how Anderson and Howe (mostly the former) extrapolated so much creativity out of a single footnote on a Yogi in his book. It wasn't a dedicated chapter, nor even a section in the book - a damn footnote! 

A lot of people rail on Yes for their "airy" and "padded" musical/lyrical concepts and attempts - but for me that's just further proof of how friggin' magical that band was at that time. 

Their creativity was, for all practical intents and purposes, seemingly limitless. 

I'd imagine they could have made as equally a majestic, impressive, divisive progressive rock recording in 1973 had Anderson and co. felt equally as moved, impressed, inspired, and motivated to create had it been a TV Guide advertisement from their hotel room instead! 

I think TFTO could have been better if it wasn't just Anderson and Howe driving it (..over the cliff imo).

Lamb is about 70-80% absolutely brilliant. If both were 60 minutes , Lamb would be 5 stars (instead of 4) and Tales 4 stars (instead of 3). There just isn't enough 'going on' with Tales. It's an 'idea' lacking inspiration. Lamb feels a lot more like a band project that only slightly veered off the road. Has any ex-member of Genesis turned on it like Wakeman did with tales?